Clara Oswin Oswald
by OhCaptain2015
Summary: Young Clara learns from her father details about the universe that she had never even considered? Who is to keep her from exploring the places the Doctor has told her about?
1. Chapter 1

"Mummy! Daddy! Lookit me!"

Clara swung higher and higher until the top metal bar of the swing set also swung with her. Her black curls swung back and her eyes closed with glee, laughing. Rose lurched forward on the dark green bench five feet from Clara. She wanted to tell her daughter not to go as high, not to lean back like that, just so she wouldn't get hurt. Her husband put a hand on her knee to calm her down.

"Let her go." He smiled, the very front bangs of his hair falling right over his eyes.

"Mummy, look!" Clara tried to swing higher, but the chains began to groan. Almost immediately the young girl dug her heels into the mulch below her to slow down.

"Are you okay, Clara?" Rose stood quickly, and her husband grabbed her hand while he stood up alongside of her. He looked to Rose, but then to his daughter who was still shakily finding her footing in the mulch.

"I'm fine, Mummy!" Clara laughed, running to her mother. She grabbed a fistful of Rose's pant leg and pulled it urgently. "D'ya think the soufflees are done yet?"

Rose laughed, detaching Clara from her and brushing her hair behind her ear. Her husband smiled, letting go of Rose's hand. He sighed and while his hands still were balled into loose fists, he appeared relaxed.

"They might be, Sweetie." Rose clutched Clara's hand; not too tight but just enough that she felt resonably sure that Clara would not be able to dart off. "Do you want to go check?"

"Yeah!" Clara grinned widely, squeezing her hand out of her mother's. She raced forward, down the hill that the playground was situated on top of. She nearly tumbled down, raced towards her house. Rose leaned forward, as if she was about to follow Clara, but her husband grabbed her hand again.

"It's okay to let her go like that, Rose Smith."

"I just don't want her to run off again!" Rose cried, keeping her eyes on Clara, as the young girl slid open their back door and walked in forgetting to take her shoes off, tracking small clomps of mud onto the kitchen tiles.

"She won't, she won't..."

Rose and her husband sped down the hill, nearly falling over each other. They began to laugh as Clara wheeled the door back open.

"They're done, Mummy! I think they're done! Come see!"

Rose opened the door completely and held it open for her husband, who walked straight in. She walked to the oven with Clara at her side, pulling open the door and looking in.

"Just perfect, sweetie. Step back for a second?"

Clara stepped back as Rose pulled the souffles out, carefully setting them on the stove. The girl reached up to grab one, but, finding it was burning hot, immediately dropped it again.

"Ouch! Mummy! That hurt!"

Clara grabed onto her left and with her right, stepping from toe to toe trying to get the pain out.

Rose's husband stepped forward and swept Clara into his arms, guiding her to the sink. He eased on the cold water and held Clara's burnt fingers under it.

"Is that any better?"

"Yeah! Thanks Daddy..."

"Just making sure my sweetheart is okay."

He kissed Clara on the forehead and she wrinkled her face, her lips curving up at the edges.

"Now lemme down - I wanna souflee!"

He laughed and set his daughter down, letting her storm up to Rose, grab a soufflee fearlessly and race off into the living room and upstairs into her bedroom. The ceiling groaned when she threw herself onto her bed.

Rose sighed, leaning back against the counter, scarily close to the still-hot stove. "What are we going to do with her?"

"Well, raise her, I suppose." The dark-haired man laughed, approaching Rose closer. He kissed her gently, and Rose blushed.

"She's just like you, you know." Rose smiled up at him, carefully grabbing a few of the soufflees from the stove and placing them in a better place to cool. "Adventurous, clever as anything."

"That makes her just like you, Rose Smith," he leaned against the counter opposite of Rose.

"Oh, you know I only travelled with you for the perks."

"The perks?"

"Being with you."

He chuckled, propping his arms straight against the counter. "So you didn't enjoy saving the world? Looking into the Time Vortex? Jack Harkness?"

"Saving the world: of course. The Time Vortex...not so much. And Jack Harkness...well...I think that's an unfair question. But, you know, no matter what, you were always there in your TARDIS with me."

"Well if I wasn't you and that TARDIS may have had a few problems here and there."

"Stuck off in the shop - just like I am now."

"You're stuck with me."

"Which is what makes this life 200% better."

He smiled, glancing to the floor.

"Are you going to tell Clara about you? Well...I mean...the other Doctor, technically."

"Yes - of course. I don't know when, but she's going to ask about my life at some point. I can't just say I was born in London and I met you during Year Eleven! I'm a Time Lord, born on Gallifrey, and I met you while saving you."

"I saved myself." Rose smirked.

"You ran!" The Doctor watched her knowingly.

"By _myself."_

_ "After _I told you too."

"Yes, Doctor, I'd be just _lost _without you." Rose swooned, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, Rose Smith, I'm sure it's actually quite the opposite."

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but there was a thundering noise parading down the stairs and back into the kitchen.

"Mummy? Daddy? D'ya think _I _can make the soufflees next time?" Clara asked, rocking on her toes, watching her mother and father with wide curious eyes.

Rose looked to her husband to offer him a sorry smile. She then looked to Clara, "sure sweetie. I just have to go out to make sure we get some eggs."

"And do we have milk?" The Doctor asked, already moving towards the fridge in order to check. "No. We don't."

"Okay," Rose looked to the ceiling as she created a mental shopping list. "Milk and eggs."

The Doctor moved to actually write that down, and Clara flew back upstairs.

"I'm gonna make soufflees!" she cried, nearing her room. "Just like Mummy!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Dad? How did you and Mum meet?"

The Doctor turned around, after just having kissed his daughter good night. Clara was tucked in at 9, just in time for her to be ready for school the next day. It was her first day of Year 5.

The Doctor sat down at the foot of Clara's bed, patting her toes. "Where'd that come from?"

"Susan was telling me about her dad, and how her mum and Dad met in Year 11 and how they've been together and I thought it was kind of really cute."

The Doctor paused, looking around the room as if the answer to Clara was tangible and he could just grab it from the corner of the room.

"I'm going to tell you this, and you have to keep it a secret okay?"

Clara watched her father confused, and he mimed zipping his lips. She smiled and copied him.

"Okay. Somewhere out there, far far away, there's another planet called Gallifrey.

"Gallifrey is beautiful. The stars are literally diamonds, the sunsets are like fire, but they don't actually destroy. It's just pure beauty.

"The people on Gallifrey look just like humans, but they're not. They're called Time Lords."

"How do they look like humans then?" Clara has slowly risen out of her blanket, until only her waist and down were still covered. She was interested.

"They just do." The Doctor shrugged. "It just happened - a feat of nature. But, while Time Lords look like humans, they are still different. Time Lords have two hearts, and they can almost control time streams and paradoxes."

"What's a paradox?"

"Imagine you're you, okay? You go back in time and say...you kill your mother before you were born."

"_Why would I do that?!_"

"I'm not saying you did, honey, just...imagine it!"

"...okay..." Clara pulled the blanket up to her nose, sinking down again.

"Since you killed her before you were born, you were never born. Which means - "

"I didn't kill her!" Clara grinned, popping her entire face back out from under the blanket.

"Exactly. Time Lord prevent paradoxes from happening, they watch over the universe, and in some cases they go in to help when there are other issues. Almost like police.

"I'm telling you this because I'm not actually...well, human. I'm a Time Lord, from Gallifrey, born on Gallifrey."

"...what?" Clara asked, not raising or lowering her blanket nor trying to hide. She seemed curious, not scared. The Doctor smiled, but only a little.

"I came to Earth a long time ago, in order to protect it. I was the last Time Lord, due to a long, terrible war on Gallifrey. Gallifrey burned, and it was incredible. Coming to Earth seemed to protect both me, and give me a chance to give back to a planet that only seemed to be incaded again and again. I was the one to protect this planet.

"Soon after I first came here, I got into a fight with a terrible monster. That monster cut off my arm, from my elbow down." The Doctor motioned to his arm. "I saved that arm, and my Time Lord-ness let me regrow this one."

"_Gross, _Daddy!" Clara squealed, squinting her eyes shut and wiggling her feet. The Doctor laughed.

"That's something else about Time Lords - we regenerate. If we're hurt, we can just fix whatever is wrong. If we're dying, we change entirely what we look like, and start a life over again.

"There was once, later, when I was dying. I started to regenerate. But instead of completely change myself, I used it to heal myself, and then I focused that energy into that spare arm.

"The arm, when a human friend touched it later, regrew into a new me. That clone, that new me is...well, me."

"Daddy, you're confusing me." Clara watched the Doctor hesitantly, raising an eyebrow. There was a crease in her forehead, where she was trying to pay attention to what her father was saying and was really, truly trying to understand. "I just don't get it."

"Tell me what ya' do get. I'll explain the rest."

"You're a Time Lord, a protector. But not really - you're just a clone."

"Not _just _a clone!" The Doctor laughed, running a hand through his hair. "But yes - basically. And that's all you really need to know right now. I promise you; you'll learn more."

"But wait, does that make me a Time Lord too?"

"I don't know, sweetie. Maybe. Maybe you're half of a Time Lord - like me."

The Doctor leaned down to kiss his daughter on the forehead. She smiled and snuggled down below her blanket, still smiling at the Doctor. He waved to her said, "good night sweetie, I love you," and turned her light off. Before he walked away, Clara whispered a quiet, "goo'night Daddy. I love you too."

The Doctor flew down the steps, barely making a noise. Rose was seated in the living room, flipping channel to channel mindlessly, muttering a quiet, "no" or "stupid" nearly every time a channel materialized.

"Clara knows." The Doctor said, sitting down beside Rose and draping his arm loose over his wife's shoulders.

"Knows about what?" Rose turned to look at the Doctor, but her eyes stayed focused on the television.

"Me. Time Lords. Gallifrey."

Rose snapped the TV off and turned directly to the Doctor. "How much does she know?"

"Basically everything, there's not that much to it."

"Why did you tell her? I would've liked to be there!"

"She asked!" The Doctor cried. "She asked how we met and - oh...I forgot to tell her."

"Forgot to tell her _what?_"

"How we met." The Doctor laughed. "That's how it all started, she asked how we met and I dived into the whole Time Lord thing and the whole losing my arm and how I'm technically a clone but I just completely forgot to tell her how we met I just got swept up in everything and the whole thing got away from me..."

"That happens a lot, sweetheart." Rose smiled and leaned over to kiss the Doctor gently.

"You know she did ask a good question though."

"And what was it?"

"She asked if she's part Time Lord."


	3. Chapter 3

Clara awoke to a blaring alarm. She opened her eyes and pulled her hand out from under her comforter before slamming it on top of the alarm clock. The clock rattled in place before settling and Clara groaned; shutting her eyes again.  
"Get up, Clara." The Doctor called from the next room over, having woken up with Clara's alarm as well. Clara groaned again, pulling her comforter just above her eyes.  
"You have three minutes, young lady!" Rose called from the same room as the Doctor. Clara threw her comforter to her knees and sat up. The sun was just coming out through her window and she squinted at it.  
She turned her radio on, and padded to her dresser as she had showered the night before. She glanced up at the mirror just above her dresser and brought her hand to her hair. It was going to need, at the very least, a thorough brushing.  
Clara pulled out dark jeans, a longer dark blue skirt, a white button down and a dark blue slightly-too-small sweater with her school's crest on it. Rose would no doubt yell at her for the sweater, but there was really no reason to go to school in one that hung over her as if it were actually made out of her mother's drapes. She immediately shoved the jeans into the bottom of her backpack. She would be going out with her friends later – and the skirt her school had for her wasn't all that flattering either.  
"Are you up, Clara?" Rose called again, and Clara rolled her eyes, stripping out of her pajamas and quickly pulling on her uniform. The black tights were going to have to take an extra second, but they could go on right under her skirt after she got that on.  
"_Yes, _mum." She mimicked her mother's mocking by flapping her mouth before buttoning up her shirt. She grabbed her sweater in her fist before turning off her radio and sliding down the stairs to the kitchen to pop some bread in the toaster for breakfast. She flicked on a small TV in the kitchen to BBC Breakfast, absentmindedly pulling her tights up while she waited for the toast.  
It popped up a few moments later, toasted to perfection, and she grabbed a can of strawberry jam from the fridge and walked over to the toaster, throwing her breakfast on a small plate and spreading the jam across quickly.  
"Have you brushed your teeth yet, Clara?"  
"Mum, I've barely eaten." Clara rolled her eyes again, leaning back against the kitchen chair, watching the TV and biting into her breakfast absentmindedly.  
"Do you know where your shoes are?"  
"Under my bed, Mum."  
"Did you do all of your homework?"  
"Yes, Mum."  
Clara listened to Rose continue talking to her, but didn't say anything. There was no way her mother could tell that she wasn't actually listening as she couldn't see Clara's face.  
She glanced to the clock and it was already 8:30.  
"Dammit…" she whispered under her breath before jumping up, shoving the last of her toast in her mouth and racing upstairs.  
She raced into her room, sliding her shoes out from under her bed and grabbed her bookbag, shoving loose papers and her binder into it.  
"Gotta go, Mum!" she called into her parents' room.  
"And what about me?" the Doctor asked, smirking, as he approached Clara at the door.  
"Love you too, Dad." Clara muttered, barely glancing at him before she raced back down the stairs and out the door.  
Her bus stop was at the very front of her neighborhood, so it was a little bit of a walk. While the bus didn't come until 3:45, she liked to be there early so she was assured to not miss it. And by early, that was only five minutes.  
Clara pulled her iPod out of a side pocket of her backpack, (that also contained her phone,) and automatically turned it on. She didn't switch the song at all, just plugged in her headphones and put them into her ears.  
Kids were crowded around a sign pole, all dressed exactly as Clara is, (the boys of course missing skirts.) None of them commented on Clara's arrival, and Clara instead leaned against a different sign, a few feet away from the other kids. She closed her eyes and bobbed her head slowly – apart from the world.  
Within minutes, the bus arrived and Clara knew instantly. She perked up and sped away from the sign – the first to walk on. She picked a seat reasonably far from the bus driver, but not in the back to slide in and lean against the window. She propped her knees up against the seat directly in front of her and closed her eyes again.  
"Ms. Smith?" Clara's English teacher rapped her desk with a ruler. Clara jumped up, staring at her blankly. The teacher mimed removing something from her ears. Clara continued to stare at her, before she realized that she had to take her headphones out. "Can you mind my classroom as to not blatantly ignore my lectures?"  
"Mm." Clara grunted, settling her chin on her arms and watching her teacher retreat to the front. Several kids on the other side of the room snickered, but Clara didn't even pay them a look. She didn't know their names, and quite honestly she didn't even though what clique they were in. They almost looked like nerds. But then again, everyone looked like nerds.  
"Mozzarella dippers please." Clara grunted, pushing her tray across the metal counter. The short lunch lady with stringy black hair plopped two fat cheese filled breadsticks onto Clara's tray and the girl moved along.  
Another girl bumped into Clara on her way to her table and she jumped.  
"Watch ou - oh." Clara rolled her eyes at her friend.  
"So where d'ya wanna go this afternoon?"  
"I don't know - wherever, I guess? Is there a movie out?" Clara walked closer to her table and then she froze, going wide-eyed.  
"What? Oh."  
"She's at our table." Clara breathed, looking rapidly between her friend and her table. "Why?"  
"I think she wanted to talk to you?" Clara's friend smiled, her dark eyes brightening. "At least that's what I heard."  
"Nina. Nina Provanso wants to talk to _me?_ Jesus Christ, okay."  
Clara took a deep breath before moving towards her table again. She sat down nonchalantly and looked up at the pale girl with straight black hair, Nina.  
"Hey Nina." she said quietly. "What's up?"


End file.
